March 30th 2012 – Auto of the day – LOLA’s – Auto #2

Price is EUROS520,000

I’m pleased to be able to offer for sale my very favorite Lola T70 of all time. I used to own and race this car from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s and she’s a fantastic car! I have many fond memories of just what a great car she is. I sold her to Jonathan Baker and he went on to rack up more than twenty victories with her before he, in turn, sold her. She’s been very well maintained and serviced and is ready to go right now. The car is in Europe.

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This T70 was originally owned by Sid Taylor and raced by Denny Hulme, Brian Redman, Frank Gardner, Nino Vaccarella, Andrea de Adamich, etc. As you can see from the history below, she is probably the most successful T70 coupe of all, winning five races, placing second four times and third just once in 1969.

She is fitted with a 5.0 liter (305 cubic inch), Chevrolet small block on injection and is probably the fastest and best set up T70 in the World. For more information, see history below, prepared by Franco Varani.

History

This car was the first MkIIIB coupe and was introduced to the public in January ’69 at the Earls Court Motor Show in London. Sold to Sid Taylor and sponsored by Hamlyn Books, the car was raced that season by some of the top drivers of the day; Brian Redman, Frank Gardner, Denny Hulme, Andrea de Adamich, Peter Revson, Sten Axelsson, Nino Vaccarella and Dieter Quester all took the helm at one point in the season with some measure of success. From seventeen race starts, the car finished in thirteen and ended up on the podium ten times with five wins, four seconds and a third. Brian Redman was the most successful of the drivers winning the Embassy Trophy at Thruxton, the Norisring 200 Mile and the Swedish GP at Karlskoga. Denny Hulme won the Kodak Trophy at Thruxton whilst on holiday with his family, and Frank Gardner won at Innsbruk in Austria.

At the end of the season Sid rented the car to John Love for the Springbok series and, sponsored by Team Gunston, finished second in the series winning the 3-hour races at Bulawayo and Pietermaritzburg. He was beaten to the title by Mike de Udy in SL76/149, who then bought SL76/138. Still in Gunston colors but entered by Grand Bahama, Mike only raced the car once, in the BOAC 1000 Kms at Brands Hatch where the car retired with camshaft problems. It was sold to Paul Vestey who did nothing with the car but sell it to Mike Coombe. Now painted mauve, Mike had a torrid time in 1971 with the now outdated car. He sold the car to Jack le Fort who raced it once at Silverstone where a brush against the pit wall damaged the nose. Whilst he was fixing it, he decided to restore the car instead. The restoration, in street legal spec, took 940 man hours. Now finished in red, the car was track tested at Silverstone by motor sport journalist Nigel Roebuck for “Competition Car” magazine. Jack sold the car to GT40 specialist John Etheridge in 1977 who only used the car on the road briefly before selling it to John Heath. He added a gold stripe, did some historic racing with the car then sold it to fellow historic racer Mike Wheatley.

Mike raced the car for the next eight seasons, repainting the car orange in 1986. Over the winter of 1987/88 Mike decided to rebuild the car on a new Lola-supplied tub keeping the original tub in storage as a spare. Mike badly crashed the new car in its first race in early ’88. Whilst Mike was recovering, John Hunt and Mike Ostroumoff bought the wreck along with the original tub, which they rebuilt with the parts from the wreck and a new set of bodywork. Now painted white and blue, John raced the car four times then decided it wasn’t quick enough, so in 1989 he built a brand new car on a new tub with all new parts and the chassis plate from the original car. That car is currently owned and raced by Nick Linney and Frank Sytner.

The old Sid Taylor car, still complete and only lacking its chassis plate, was sold to T70 historian and author John Starkey. John raced the car over the next five years restoring the chassis in between times over the winter of 1991/92. In 1994 he sold the car to Jonathan Baker who repainted the car in silver with a red stripe and raced it in historics until selling it to its present owner in 2000. Still in silver and red, and now plated “SL76/1-138”, the car can still be seen racing in historic events across Europe.